Up until now, there have been known vehicle control apparatuses adapted to obtain information indicative of a road status of a current position of the vehicle and the road status of a position ahead of the current position, and to encourage a driver with a driving operation in accordance with the road status of the position ahead, thereby improving a gasoline mileage of the vehicle.
As one of such the vehicle control apparatuses mentioned above, there is known a driving system adapted to encourage the driver with an operation of an accelerator pedal and a brake pedal in accordance with an inclination of the road at the position ahead (For example, see Patent Document 1).
The driving system disclosed in the Patent Document 1 comprises a vehicle position determination means to determine the current position of the vehicle, an inclination information storing means to store the inclination information of the read, and a decision means to decide the driving operation for improvement of the gasoline mileage based on signals inputted from the vehicle position determination means and the inclination information storing means, wherein the decision means is adapted to decide a timing of accelerator pedal operation and brake pedal operation in favor of an improvement of the gasoline mileage and to notify the driver of the timing.
By the construction as set forth in the above definition, the decision means is adapted to obtain the inclination information of the road at the position ahead of the current position from the inclination information storing means and to decide an optimal timing that the accelerator pedal or the brake pedal be depressed by the driver, thereby improving the gasoline mileage of the vehicle.
In addition, further improvement of the gasoline mileage can be realized by a vehicle control apparatus adapted to decide the driving operation for improvement of the gasoline mileage based on information inputted from the vehicle position determination means and the inclination information storing means as disclosed in the driving system disclosed in the Patent Document 1, and to have the vehicle travel in an inertia travel by intercepting a driving power transmitted from a power source to driving wheels.